Chapter 3: Sex and the Single Arab

“I had come to the square [Tahrir] to talk to young people about sex, how the fight for political freedoms might translate into their personal lives. One young protestor was aghast at the suggestion that the political liberation he and his colleagues were fighting—and, in recent days, dying—for might one day free Egyptians from all fetters, including sexual. “No one, no one will accept that. This is not the freedom we are aiming for. The political revolution will need a social revolution, but not a sexual [one].” He shook his head again. “No, no, no. Not in a hundred years.”

“Sex and the Single” Arab looks at the dilemma facing young people across the region—in and out of the bedroom. This chapter focuses on young women, caught between family demands and personal aspirations, and the great lengths to which societies go to keep them in line, especially when it comes to sexual life.